Couple of people we met at Hakuna Matata were Ricardo and his girlfriend Alia. They are travelling around Ecuador on Ricardo's new 650GS. Super nice people which just reinforced my very positive experience with South American people so far.

Left Hanuka Matata for Baños - a relatively short ride of about 180km. As soon as we got to nearby Tena, it started raining, then it rained harder. Had about 2 hours of everything from drizzle to downpour.

Stopped outside of Puyo for a break and some gas and a coffee and get chatting with this guy in the store. Turns out he used to be the mayor of Puyo and that city had some sort of sister city arrangement with Vancouver, BC. He was able to travel to the Great White North a couple of times and received a royal tour of BC back in the 90s. He was at this store with his son who has a milk processing plant and was delivering a pickup load of milk to a bus who was taking it on to another city a couple hundred miles away. Novel way to deliver milk.

West of Puyo the road got real interesting again as it ran up this valley. Curvy and a whole series of tunnels – some pretty long and just because they were in a tunnel didn't stop people from passing each other. Pretty canyon.

Came out of the last tunnel and Ricardo and Alia pull up beside us so we stop to say hi. After they left, we are looking over the gorge at these waterfalls and all of a sudden hear a bunch of screaming and see this contraption heading across the gorge. Gotta do that!

Mrs RB wasn’t too impressed. Tried to talk her into doing the zipline that ran parallel to the basket . . . she was able to express her displeasure with that suggestion with very few words.

This guy was the "operator" encouraging this contraption to drag the basket back and forth over the gorge.

The waterfalls apparently used to be a lot larger but they built a dam up stream and cut a lot of the water off.

They even had a Zebra - don't see many of those around here . . .

Arrived in Baños which is a really nice little town.

Then headed up the mountain to Luna Runtun where we had a reservation - another successful MotoTreks recommendation. Great ride up the mountain, beautiful grounds, great food and a super view.

Spectacular view of Baños from our room

From the hot tubs

Were supposed to be able to see the glow of the Volcan Tungurahua behind us at night but the clouds weren’t cooperating keeping the peak blanketed. So, thwarted once again to see something on fire from a volcano.

Went into town the next night and stayed at the Hosteria Floresta - a great hotel for bikers. A bit more of what I am used to. Good parking, good internet and a block from town center.

Went to this great little Spanish restaurant which had a Tapas type menu. Outstanding sausages apparently made by Nuns up in the mountains using Spanish methods.

__________________www.rexbuck.com - RexBuck's Latin America
Information on travelling in Latin America.
Includes links to ride reports to Mexico and to South America